e
rattle of innumerable wheels was as the rattle of hansoms. A soaking
rain fell, and all the sahibs hailed 'rickshaws,--they call them 'ricks
here,--and the wind was chillier than the rain. It was the first touch
of honest weather since Calcutta. No wonder with such a climate that
Hong-Kong was ten times livelier than Singapur, that there were signs of
building everywhere, and gas-jets in all the houses, that colonnades and
domes were scattered broadcast, and the Englishmen walked as Englishmen
should--hurriedly and looking forward. All the length of the main street
was verandahed, and the Europe shops squandered plate glass by the
square yard. (_Nota bene._--As in Simla so elsewhere: mistrust the plate
glass shops. You pay for their fittings in each purchase.)

The same Providence that runs big rivers so near to large cities puts
main thoroughfares close to big hotels. I went down Queen Street, which
is not very hilly. All the other streets that I looked up were built in
steps after the fashion of Clovelly, and under blue skies would have
given the Professor scores of good photographs. The rain and the fog
blotted the views. Each upward-climbing street ran out in white mist
that covered the sides of a hill, and the downward-sloping ones were
lost in the steam from the waters of the harbour, and both were very
strange to see. "Hi-yi-yow," said my 'rickshaw coolie and balanced me
on one wheel. I got out and met first a German with a beard, then three
jolly sailor boys from a man-of-war, then a sergeant of Sappers, then a
Parsee, then two Arabs, then an American, then a Jew, then a few
thousand Chinese all carrying something, and then the Professor.

"They make plates--instantaneous plates--in Tokio, I'm told. What d'you
think of that?" he said. "Why, in India, the Survey Department are the
only people who make their own plates. Instantaneous plates in Tokio;
think of it!"

I had owed the Professor one for a long time. "After all," I replied,
"it strikes me that we have made the mistake of thinking too much of
India. We thought we were civilised, for instance. Let us take a lower
place. This beats Calcutta into a hamlet."

And in good truth it did, because it was clean beyond the ordinary,
because the houses were uniform, three storied, and verandahed, and the
pavements were of stone. I met one horse, very ashamed of himself, who
was looking after a cart on the sea road, but upstairs there are no
vehicles save 'ricks